ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 2, 1996 TAG: 9612020130
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
In Rome, taxi drivers distributed AIDS leaflets. Across Thailand, gas stations offered free condoms. In South Africa, Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu went on television to urge people to practice safe sex.
World AIDS Day was marked with renewed vigor around the world Sunday after a U.N. agency reported an accelerating death toll, with nearly a quarter of the 6.4 million AIDS deaths to date occurring in the past year.
In 1996, 3.1 million people were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, bringing the total number of people with HIV or AIDS to 22.6 million, UNAIDS said.
In Thailand, which has an active sex industry, 420 gas stations distributed 3 million condoms to customers with the warning, ``Be careful of AIDS when feeling naughty.''
An estimated 800,000 of Thailand's 60 million people have the HIV virus, and 50,000 more have died of AIDS.
Photo exhibitions carried the message in India, which volunteer organizations say has Asia's worst AIDS epidemic, with an estimated 1 million or more HIV cases. Marches were held in Bombay.
More than 400 people gathered in Tokyo for the lighting of a 20-foot tree bearing 12,000 red ribbons, symbol of the fight against AIDS.
To call attention to AIDS among American Indians, a sculpture was shrouded in black nylon outside Phoenix's Heard Museum, renowned for its collection of Indian art.
AIDS cases among Native Americans in the United States have doubled in three years, to 1,439 this year.
In Rome, two taxi companies distributed AIDS information leaflets to passengers, and some players in Italy's top soccer league wore red bows on their uniforms.
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